With the pace of advancement of computers, computer systems including software application packages for the creation of full color computer images of substantial complexity are becoming ever more prevalent. The complexity of the images created is also increasing so that created images made up of hundreds, or even thousands of separate objects are common.
The human creator of such a complex image often relies on a hierarchical, or top-down, approach to deal with the complexity of the image. In this respect, "grouping" operations well know to those skilled in the art of creating complex computer graphics are used to treat a group of objects as a single entiry for copying, moving, resealing, or other complex operations.
As the complexity of an image increases, the complexity of the hierarchy of interrelated objects also increases. Often the creator of an image wishes to access a certain object or group of objects within the hierarchy. However, these objects can be either partially or fully obscured by other objects and can form part of a large collection of different groups of objects. Thus, even if a given object has a certain number of associated control points, as is normal in the art, it is unlikely that a particular object can be selected within a large complex hierarchy of objects. This is particularly the case where the object to be selected or chanced is "buried" deep within the hierarchy with other objects also overlapping the current object.
At the very least, a considerable disadvantage of the prior art resides in the substantial frustration and annoyance experienced by the creator in having to move and "ungroup" a substantial number of objects within the hierarchy merely to alter the characteristics of one of those objects. Further, another disadvantage arises because the particular groupings are often of great importance and cannot be readily recovered once an ungrouping operation has been performed.